


That Night

by MargotCelvin



Series: Extra Nightmares [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Depression, It's makes me sad this is a real tag, Sad Stanley Uris, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 20:18:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20458865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MargotCelvin/pseuds/MargotCelvin
Summary: Bill wasn’t expecting a phone call from his best friend at two in the morning. He certainly wasn’t expecting what Stan was going to tell him.





	That Night

**Author's Note:**

> This is the full story of the events that transpired the night that Stan was going to kill himself. I was in a pretty dark place mentally when I wrote most of this so lol.

Bill hadn’t been to bed yet. He had gotten caught up working on a story he thought he could turn into something great. Bill looked down at his ringing phone, it was Stan. It was only a little unusual that Stan was calling him, especially since it was the middle of the night. Bill rubbed some of the sleep out of his eyes as he answered the phone.

“Hello,” he said through a yawn. He had been yawning for hours but that didn’t mean much to him. His body was telling him to sleep, but there was so much more of him that said nah.

“Bill.” Stan’s tone was off, he had called Bill after nightmares in the past but this was different. He sounded like he hadn’t been to sleep at all.

“Stan. Are you okay?” Stan took a long time to respond. Bill was pretty sure he heard water running in the background.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stan. What are you sorry about?” Bill was standing at that point.

“I’m sorry for the short notice.”

“The short notice for what?”

“I just wanted to hear your voice before I left.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Stan.” Bill was pulling his jeans up as Stan choked back a sob on the other end of the phone.

“I am though. And if it doesn’t happen now, then it’ll happen soon enough. You’re all just going to leave me. I’m going to wake up one day and all of you will be gone, so I might as well make it easy on you guys.”

“Stan, we aren’t-”

“Don’t fucking lie to me! I know you are!” Bill heard more muffled cries on the other end, like Stan was trying to muffle his cries in his sleeves. Bill was tying his shoes as fast as he could. “I know that none of you really care about me. They all put up with me because I’m supposedly your best friend. You just put up with me because we’ve known each other forever. But you’ll all leave. I know you will. I just figured I would do you all a favor and take myself out of the picture for you.”

“Stanley Uris, I need you to stop whatever it is you’re planning.” Bill was glad this was one of the few times his truck started up decently quietly. If Stan heard the truck starting, he probably would’ve done whatever it was he was planning a lot faster.

“Don’t you dare come over here, Bill.” Bill heard the running water shut off. “Goodbye Bill.” The other end of the line went dead as Bill was pulling off the side of the road.

“Fuck!” Bill shouted as he slammed the palm of his hand against his steering wheel. The first clap of thunder for the night made Bill jump, it also made him speed up.

“Not now. Please God not now.” He had to be fast. He couldn’t think about the thunder. He was going a lot faster than he ever had in their neighborhood, there was no time. He hoped that the two night cops in Derry weren’t around to see him going 50 in their 25mph neighborhood.

He pulled into the driveway behind Stan’s car. His parents weren’t home, which seemed strange, but Bill wasn’t too worried at the moment, not when Stan was in trouble. Bill didn’t bother locking his truck, no one was going to steal that piece of shit. Bill tried not to let his hands shake as he grabbed the key to Stan’s house.

Bill unlocked the door and made his way inside, trying to stay as quiet as he could. He was scared that if Stan heard him, it would only make things worse. Bill locked the door behind him solely out of habit. He made his way up the stairs as fast as he could, taking them two at a time.

Bill opened the bathroom door that was across the hall from Stan’s room. Stan looked up at the opening door and Bill felt like time stopped. Stan was sitting on the edge of the tub, water coming up most of his calves. Bill saw the shine of the razor blade in Stan’s left hand.

Then time sped up. Bill crossed the room in a few steps. Stan moved the sharp object over to his right wrist, although Bill grabbed both of Stan’s wrists in one of his hands.

“Bill, let go of me and let me do this.”

“Drop the razor blade.”

“Let go of my hands, you asshole.” Stan tried to pull his hands of Bill’s, but his football grip was a lot stronger than Stan was.

“Stan, let go of the razor blade.” Stan did, knowing that this was a losing battle on his part. Bill wrapped his free arm around Stan’s torso and pulled him off the side of the tub. Although with Stan’s fighting Bill only got a few steps back.

“Fucking let go of me you fucking asshole!” Stan tried his hardest to get out of Bill’s arms, but Bill was a lot stronger than he was. “Why won’t you just let me do it?!”

“I can’t. Not when I can stop you.”

“Well, you’re gonna give me the fucking key back because you’re not stopping me next time. I fucking hate you.”

“There’s not gonna be a next time.”

“Why are you postponing the inevitable?”

_Because I can’t stand the thought of losing you? Because I haven’t been able to be a big enough man to tell you I love you? Because losing you would actually kill me? _These were all things that Bill wanted to say, but he wouldn’t. Stan wasn’t going to believe him anyway.

So instead, Bill didn’t say anything. He just held onto Stan as his head dropped to cry more. Bill was able to keep his own tears at bay, although he wasn’t sure how. Bill loosened his grip to turn Stan around, although he had been fighting Bill earlier, he willing let Bill spin his around.

Bill was a couple of inches taller than Stan was, so Stan could easily sit his head on Bill’s shoulder to cry. Which is what he did. Normally, Stan hated crying, but he didn’t care at this point.

Stan had been so sure of his decision earlier that night. But now he wasn’t so sure. If Bill really didn’t care about him, why would he come over? Why would he have stopped Stan? If Bill didn’t care, he would’ve let Stan kill himself. He wouldn’t have driven over here. He wouldn’t be holding him now. Bill wouldn’t be doing any of this is he didn’t care. Stan knew that. He had to.

Stan was still hiccupping when Bill picked him up. Stan couldn’t find it in himself to care. He had stopped caring about a lot of things that night.

When they got to Stan’s room, Bill laid Stan down onto the bed. Stan expected Bill to leave, but he didn’t. Bill kicked off his shoes and got under the covers. This wasn’t a new thing between them, they had shared a bed dozens of times the summer Georgie went missing. But this felt different. That summer it was always Stan trying to comfort Bill, now their roles were reversed.

“Why?” Bill’s question broke the slight silence that was between them, Stan was still crying slightly. Stan didn’t really need to ask for clarification.

“None of you care about me. We’re going to graduate and all of you are going to distance yourself from me until I’m all alone. I figured no one would miss me. No one would even notice if I disappeared.”

“I would notice. We all would.”

“Why? Because you wouldn’t get roasted quite so often?” Stan heard the thunder on the other side of his window. He figured the storm wasn’t here yet, but it was getting closer.

“Because I would be losing my best friend. We would be losing a vital member of the Losers club.”

“The club you don’t even hang out with anymore?”

“I’m sorry. I do have an actual reason though.”

“What is it?” Bill tried not to jump at the thunder, the storm was getting closer.

“Bowers mostly.”

“What about him?”

“He wanted me to join his weird fucking gang thing and when I said no, he threatened you guys. We made this deal that if I hung out with you guys less, he would leave you alone, as long as I hung out with the football guys.”

“Then why do Mike and Ben still get to hang out with us?”

“They aren’t the starting quarterback.”

“That’s fucking stupid and you expect me to believe that bullshit?”

“Yeah. Because it’s true.” Stan stared at Bill for a minute. He was desperately trying to find anything in Bill that would say he was lying. When Stan didn’t see anything, he curled in on himself more. Feeling like an idiot. Why would Bill lie to him?

Bill wrapped his arms around Stan and pulled him into his chest. Stan shook as he continued to cry, harder now.

“Stan, where are your parents?”

“I don’t know. They left before we even had dinner.”

“Did you and your dad have another fight?” Stan nodded into Bill’s chest. Their fights had been getting worse and a lot more frequent lately. “Is he the one that put these ideas in your head?”

“He was at first. And I tried to tell myself that he was wrong, but my depression always makes sure to remind me that he’s right.” Bill’s breath caught in his throat. Depression. Stan had depression. It seemed too obvious when he said it.

Stan had had way too many days where he was unmotivated and couldn’t come to school and would stay in bed all day even though he said he wasn’t tired or sick. Bill should’ve seen it. He should’ve caught on to it before this point. Maybe if he had, they could’ve avoided this night.

“Did you lock the door?” Stan random question pulled Bill out of his head.

“Yes, I did.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Do you want to go check?”

“No, I believe you.”

“You know your father is wrong right? Whatever he’s telling you is wrong.”

“But what if he’s not?”

“Well, what is he telling you?”

“That I’m not a good son.”

“Well, he’s a shit father.”

“That I hide everything from him.”

“You just don’t tell people things unless they ask or you have to.”

“That none of you will care about me after graduation, that none of you will speak to me after graduation, that’s what it was tonight.”

“I care about you. We all do. And don’t you dare try to tell me that I’m lying to you, because I’m not. Stan, I don’t lie to you.”

“Will you stay here tonight?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thank you, Bill.”

“Of course.” Bill wanted to tell him. He really did. He wanted to tell Stan how much he loved him. How he couldn’t live without him. But he couldn’t. And he hated himself for it. He hated that he couldn’t be a big enough man to tell Stan that he loved him, and he had for a really long time.

Neither of them slept very much. Bill was able to drift a little but the thunder always woke him back up. Stan couldn’t get his head to stop telling him he had done it for attention. That he was only doing this to get Bill’s attention. To get him to stay. That he had done it because he was being selfish.

Bill decided something that night. He decided that he was gonna tell Stan. He didn’t know when or how, but he was going to. That night made him realize that he couldn’t lose Stan. That if he lost Stan, he wouldn’t be able to go on. He wouldn’t make it. He decided on that stormy night in mid-March that he was going to tell Stan all of that someday.

It’s just a shame it took him until the beginning of July to do it.

They both skipped school the next day. Both of them were drained from the night before. Stan asked if they could get out of the house for a bit, he didn’t want to be anywhere near that place.

They stopped at the diner and got food before going out to the quarry. Stan didn’t really eat any of his food at first.

“You got to eat Stan.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Yesterday at lunch.”

“You ate like half your sandwich and nothing else.” The day before had been one of the days that Bill ate with the Losers. He used the excuse that Ben and Mike had begged him to eat with them. They hadn’t, he just missed them.

“Well, that was the last time I ate food.”

“When was the last time you ate a whole meal?”

“Couple days probably.”

“Then you need to eat.” Stan stared at Bill for a second before picking up his food and actually eating it. “Is not eating a normal thing when it comes to your depression?”

“Only on bad days.”

“What was the longest string of bad days?”

“Two months, next week it’ll be three.”

“Stan, why didn’t you tell me?” Stan shrugged, he wanted to say that he didn’t really have a reason, but he did. He thought if Bill knew, he would lose whatever chance he had with Bill, even if it was very slim. He thought that Bill would see him as weak. He thought Bill would think differently of him. He thought Bill would decide it was too much work to be close friends with a severely depressed person and leave. He wasn’t going to tell Bill any of that.

At least, not for another few summers when they were sitting on the floor of Bill’s family library talking about moving out of Derry for good. When they were talking about moving into a small apartment with Eddie and his artist boyfriend that they hadn’t even met yet.

Stan couldn’t have known it, but he really needed that artist in his life. He needed someone who really understood what it was like to hate everything about yourself, for the voice in your head to sound a lot like someone it shouldn’t. He would only have to wait until move-in day his freshman year to meet that person for the first time.


End file.
